When Kampala Road was Quiet

On Wednesday at around noon, I walked down Kampala Road, listening to the traffic and the crowds and the taxi touts and the energy that all just seemed noisy. Then, all of a sudden, the traffic stopped flowing. Where dozens of cars should have been traveling, suddenly there were none. The street was silent. I paused, as did several other people who were walking near me, and glanced into the now empty street. An ambulance siren went off somewhere in the distance. Actually, I don’t know that it was an ambulance. I don’t know what kind of siren it might have been. I just knew it was ringing, somewhere, for some unknown reason. Ambulances are not common in these ends, and most sirens indicate a government convoy. Maybe it was the foreboding quiet that made me associate the distant sound with an ambulance, I don’t really know. I kept walking, in the direction of where the traffic should have been flowing from but wasn’t, eager to see if there was some kind of source to its end.

Eventually, I got to a place further down the thoroughfare where more cars were flowing. There was no particular or apparent cause to their stop, as if it had just been a regular bottleneck. But something more must have happened. It just wasn’t anything I could see.

I kept walking. At the next junction, an expensive car, the kind with tinted windows so that wananchi wouldn’t know who had such an expensive car, a Jaguar, I believe, hit a boda boda. Not badly, just a small collision. But this once again stopped the already halted traffic. A police officer in the normal khaki that seems to be all to frequently sited these days, stopped him, and yelling was involved. The police have been cracking down on boda boda drivers who travel without helmets or permits, which is basically all of them. He grabbed the driver by the belt of his pants, as someone else pushed his idle bike towards the curb. I watched until the police officer started watching me, making it clear I was doing something I should not have been doing, and then I continued. The man in the Jaguar continued along his way as well.

The siren in the distance continued.

Nothing big or violent or obvious seemed to have happened, yet it also seemed that much had transpired. Everyone just continued on their way, the unremarkable quiet now filled with noise, the street filled with cars, the unnamed boda going to meet an unknown fate.

Another great map of Africa

The size of Africa map was great. So is this one. Hat tip to Jillian C. York.

Ugandan orphans choir robbed.... TWICE

This is just too much, even for my cynical self.

The SIFA African Children's Choir might need to add some Chicago blues to its repertoire after thieves again struck the traveling group of Ugandan orphans....

The choir has been traveling around the U.S. since April to raise money to build group orphan homes and a school in their tiny village.

The article is a bit of a sob story about how the orphans' ONLY copies of their dying parents were on the computers that were stolen the firs time around. (Which orphans in Uganda have digital photos? Or if they scanned the photos, where are the originals? And, if you do scan that kind of thing, you back that shit up!)

Orphans, especially robbed orphans, do tend to bring out the best in otherwise not philanthropic businessmen, and one has donated $10,000 and one donated $5,000. Though Chicago tourism may need a boost from both businessmen to recover from this kind of evil.

The article says the kids were there to fund raise - but how much does it cost to buy across-the-globe plane tickets?

Anyway, for a more articulate and less whiny account of orphans choir in Uganda, visit the always lovely and informative Ugandan Insomniac.

African Reading Challenge 2008: I didn't do it for you

Finally, since I definitely signed up a long time ago....

Not that much has been written by Western journalists about Eritrea. Michaela Wrong decided to write all of it. While I thought her tome "I didn't do it for you: How the West betrayed a small African nation," was interesting and informative, it was way too long - like a Horn of Africa marathon that never ended.

Parts of it were fascinating, especially the chapter on Kagnew, an American military base just outside the capital Asmara. Wrong shows just how bad Americans in other parts of the world can be, from innocuous farting contests to children born to an Eritrean prostitutes and American fathers who could not be identified and would never take responsibility for their well-being.

Perhaps more books aren't written about the Horn because the level of government surveillance and disruption there functions as an effective deterrent. (But then again, that also applies to other countries that have lots of books written about them.)

I'm glad Wrong wrote this book because I'm glad to have it on my shelf as a reference and now have a better baseline of knowledge, yet I wish I could recommend it more whole-heatedly as there are so few alternatives.

Anyone else know of better books on Eritrea? Let me know.

Blog Housekeeping

I am now on Twitter.

Sign up for Blog Action Day - October 15, 2008.

And, a few new links that are in the sidebar:

• African Architecture and Design
• The Face of Afrika
• Nairobi Notes
• Bankele

Finally, do you live in Kampala and need a tutor, or know someone who does need a tutor? I can vouch for this guy :-).

One story, times three: Uganda's Blind Boxer

How one blind boxer got famous, one news outlet at a time...

REUTERS, Nov 6, 2007

Ugandan "used to boxing in the dark"

KAMPALA (Reuters) - It's an amateur boxing practice with a difference: neither fighter can see.

In the red corner: Robert Sembooze, 28, blindfolded. In the blue: Bashir Ramadan, 38, who doesn't need a blindfold because he lost his sight 12 years ago.

The two Ugandans in padded gloves dance like fire flies on the concrete floor of the East Coast Boxing Club and punch each other in the head and chest.

Uganda's blind boxer, little known even in his home country, does not think being sightless is the handicap some might expect.

"I don't consider it a big problem," said Ramadan, who has to tap his way into Kampala's popular fight club with a stick, as he wiped down after the half-hour punch-up.

AFP, March 24, 2008

Blind Ugandan Boxer Taking the World by Storm

KAMPALA (AFP) — His name stirs amazement in coaches, while trainers gush over his skill and competitors quake in fear. Bashir Ramathan is an intimidating boxer -- even though he is blind.

Ramathan, 36, lost his sight in 1995 but refused to let that stop him from resuming his boxing career, three years ago.

Peers call him "the German" -- a reference to Germany's tenacity on the football field, mirroring Ramathan's in the ring.

"I was told by my parents I could do everything," Ramathan says, as he jumps rope outside of the East Coast Boxing Club, a dusty, concrete facility that opened last year.

NEW YORK TIMES, August 15, 2008

A Blind Boxer Inspires Uganda

TALK about shadowboxing.

In the center of a flyblown gym, where the musk runs strong and the weak are not welcome, Bashir Ramathan bobs and weaves, his tattered gloves punching furiously, trying to find their target. Blows rain down on his arms, his chest, his sweat-beaded face. But his fists keep flying — all completely in the dark.

“You better watch my hook!” he warns. “It’s fast! It’s sharp! Watch out!”

Mr. Ramathan is completely blind, and he is a middleweight boxer. It sounds improbable, and dangerous, but it is his way of dealing with his disability.

This husky, bearded bricklayer from the Ugandan slums is fearless, calling out all the other boxers in the gym to go toe-to-toe with him — as long as they wear a blindfold.

And finally, from the State of News Media (via Ethan Zuckerman)

While the news is always on, there is not a constant flow of new events. The level of repetition in the 24-hour news cycle is one of the most striking features one finds in examining a day of news. Google News, for instance, offers consumers access to some 14,000 stories from its front page, yet on this day they were actually accounts of the same 24 news events. On cable, just half of the stories monitored across the 12 hours were new. The concept of news cycle is not really obsolete, and the notion of news 24-7 is something of an exaggeration.

Karamoja in photos

I just put up a new post on the Walrus about Karamoja, "If some Africans die in some bush, does anyone care?" And here are some extra non-famine related photos.

Lions and Walrus - yet still not a safari

This has been in the works for some time now, but this Lion will now officially be blogging on the Walrus website. The Walrus is a Canadian magazine known for its love of lions. Okay, I don't actually know if they love lions, but they liked me enough to ask me to start blogging there. I'll still write here, and when I write there I'll put the link here.

My blog there is called This is Not A Safari. I thought about sticking with the Lion theme, but i decided that maybe that platform just isn't big enough for two large mammals. After making a list of other inane names (Thoughts Along the Nile, Kampala Musings, Lion versus Walrus), I decided on This is Not a Safari.

The new title is still related to animals, but my point with the lion was always somehow related to the fact that I have NEVER. SEEN. A. REAL. LION. When I visit America, distant acquaintances or friends of friends who learn that I live in East Africa generally reply with something like, "I've always wanted to go on a safari!"

As if I ride an elephant to work.

Trust me, if that option were available, I would take it, because it would be pretty awesome to just sort of step over and perhpas even do some smashing of Kampala traffic jams as I made my way to town.

But, my life is more than lions and my work is not about saving gorillas. Hence the title.

The first post there today is about a character readers of this blog will be familiar with: Stephen of (formerly) Kireka. For all of you who have been waiting to hear what happened to him, here it is.


A UGANDAN ORPHAN WITH A WEB PRESENCE

KAMPALA, UGANDA—When you Google “Stephen Batte,” you get over 600 hits. That’s a huge number of Internet references for a nine-year old Ugandan orphan, who up until recently didn’t have enough to eat, shoes, clean clothes, or a blanket, let alone a web presence.

But, now that he’s famous, in part thanks to me, he’s got an online following and about a dozen American and Canadian couples anxious to adopt him.

I met Stephen in May just outside Kampala, when I went to take photos for the Associated Press for a story about young children slaving all day to crush rocks in a stone quarry. Most people in the area are urban refugees from a twenty-year conflict that has ravaged Northern Uganda, though most of these children don’t know the place their parents left behind or the regional geopolitics that perpetuate the conflict. They do, however, know how to crush rocks: filling a twenty-litre jerry can earns them 100 shillings (about six cents). While their parents may have fled Northern Uganda for the safety of Kampala and the possibility of economic advancement, few people make it out of the quarry once they arrive. Every day, hundreds of adults and children sit scattered throughout the vast pit, tirelessly crushing rocks into smaller and smaller pebbles.

Wherefore art thou, lion?

I've been a bit busy with a few things lately and haven't blogged as much as I would like. However, that's partly because of a brand-new-blog-venture-starting-soon. Stay tuned here for a link. The first post will be an update on Stephen from Kireka. And the new venture involves another non-lion animal.

And if you're wondering about other African kids doing hard labor, this time in West Africa, look no further. But until you get there, look at this kid in Gulu town:

Olympics, Sex and Coups: selected links

Olympics

Uganda's Olympic metal history and current athletes.

South Africa and America's token flag carriers.

The amount of gear a Newsweek photographer is bringing to the Olympics.

Sex

Gay Africans are coming out online.

Choosing stilettos over sewing machines.

Coups

Can anyone remember the last time Mauritania was in the news this much?

Through the river and over the falls

Copyright Glenna Gordon/Christian Science Monitor

A story from the lovely Jina Moore, with a few snaps by me. And all you ever thought you might need to know about those guys who swim the Bujugali rapids.

Through the river and over the falls

Siragi Wasige doesn’t have that many options.

Umwenda, the village along the Nile River where Mr. Wasige was born, is unremarkable, which is to say it has as little as most other villages in rural Uganda. But a guy with a wife and two kids at home has to earn a living, so Wasige spends his days along the river, waiting for tourists to wander by the famous Bujagali Falls. For just a few bucks, he does the trick that draws them to its banks: He hurls himself into a Grade V white-water rapid, wearing only his swimming trunks and holding an empty jerry can.

“You have to make sure the jerry can you use does not have an inlet for water – no cracks, no hole,” he says as he tightens the lid on his five-gallon yellow jug. “If there’s a hole, you sink.”

He slips a rope around his wrist and tightens the knot at the other end, around the handle of the jerry can. “It’s for emergencies,” he says with a smile. It’s an obliging nod to risk, but one he thinks is gratuitous. “I have a lot of faith in the jerry can.”

His may be the least capital-intensive job on the Nile, where white-water rafting has become a cash cow of Ugandan tourism. The river supports about 12,000 rafters each year, most of them foreigners, and another 200 or so fishermen, local leaders say.

But the fishermen need boats and nets and oars; the white-water guides need top-of-the-line rafts and safety equipment. Wasige needs an item so cheap and so ubiquitous that even the poorest African homes have them. Like millions of other people across the continent, Wasige uses the jerry can to haul water into his house – when he’s not using it to keep himself afloat. (MORE...)

And, some photos that didn't make the cut:

I wish my still photos could have captured the way this guy twitched and flexed his left peck every time Jina and I glanced at him.

Send your old stuff to Africa

Lots of people bring shoes/books/toys from America or Europe to Africa. Westerners no doubt have these things in so much plenty that they become disposable. But, that doesn't mean they should dispose of them in Africa.

From the BBC, an article about old computers sent to Ghana, with this funny photo and anecdote buried in the middle of the story:

To gain an idea of how people in the rich countries sometimes provide inappropriate gifts, you only need to take a look at Ibrahim's footwear which he found abandoned on the same rubbish heap.

He is wearing a pair of red moon boots that once graced European ski resorts.

No, it has not started snowing in steamy Ghana. But this seemingly out-of-place attire provides good protection as Ibrahim trudges through the toxic sludge, smashing screens in search of scrap.

If you're coming to Africa and want to give people material items, skip the overweight luggage fees, get here, ask people what they might want or need, and buy it locally to support the economy and the individual.

Are you a smart, young Ugandan woman who wants to study abroad?

An opportunity from the Madvhani Foundation. For more information, download this document.

Zawadi Africa will offer Five (5) scholarships as follows: Two (2) Scholarships in Computer Science, ICT or Computer Engineering sponsored by Google to study in South Africa. The scholarships will cover all academic costs (tuition room and board) plus annual travel, and most living expenses.

Applicants must have the following qualifications:

a. must be a female Ugandan citizen, and a recent (past 2 years) graduate of a Ugandan high school

b. must have a minimum of 21 points in A Levels, with minimum grade point of A-6 in Mathematics and Physics

c. Interested in majoring in Computer science, ICT or Computer Engineering

d. must show demonstrated leadership capability based on activities in high school or in the community (head girl, sports captain, community volunteer)

e. demonstrated financial need

Application deadline for the Computer Science Scholarships is August 15th 2008

Three (3) General Scholarships to study in the United States of America.

The scholarships will cover annual travel, and tuition, room and board. Applicants must have the following qualifications:

f. must be a female Ugandan citizen, and a recent (past 2 years) graduate of a Ugandan high school

g. must have 23 points or better in A levels.

h. majors/area of study offered in a broad variety of areas except for Medicine or Law.

i. must show demonstrated leadership capability based on activities in high school or in the community (head girl, sports captain, community volunteer)j. demonstrated financial need Application deadline for the General Scholarships is September 1, 2008.

To apply, please send a brief letter of introduction providing your name, qualifications, desired area of study, and contact information. Please attach a copy of your A-level certificate. Please also attach a brief essay (1 page or less) stating why you believe you would be the best candidate for the scholarship that you are applying for and why you believe you would make the best use of the education you would receive if you win the scholarship.

Applications, specifying which category is being applied for, should be submitted to :

SECRETARY MULJIBHAI MADHVANI FOUNDATION ZAWADI / MADHVANI FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIPSC/o. EAST AFRICAN DISTRIBUTORS LIMITED MADHVANI FOUNDATION BUILDING PLOT 20/2, JINJA ROAD, P.O. BOX 6361, KAMPALA.

Photo of the day